The subject invention relates to battery powered portable electric light source systems.
Flashlights exist in a very large number of different kinds, but seem to have in common the basic feature that such portable light sources carry within their battery compartment essentially only the batteries that are used jointly for energizing the flashlight. In those prior-art cases, backup batteries had to be procured from outside the flashlight""s battery compartment whenever the flashlight""s batteries inside the flashlight""s battery compartment had become exhausted or too weak for a given task. Often, the needed replacement batteries were not at hand when the need therefor arose.
A prudent practice therefore was to carry separate replacement batteries when intending to use a flashlight regularly or for a longer period of time. However, even then, when exhausted batteries were taken out of the flashlight""s battery compartment for replacement by fresh batteries from outside the compartment, there often was confusion, particularly outdoors in the dark, between exhausted and fresh batteries, whereby continued use of the flashlight was delayed until the confusion had been cleared up, often with the aid of another flashlight, if such was available.
Moreover, the confusion between exhausted and fresh batteries tended to infuse itself into the flashlight""s battery compartment by causing the user to mistakenly reinsert a substantially exhausted battery into the flashlight""s battery compartment along with a fresh battery. The result was a lower light output from the erroneously paired old and new batteries. Sometimes, if the old batteries were not too exhausted, such lower light output still was strong enough to raise uncertainty whether the user was in fact using fresh batteries of low quality or whether the user rather had been confused enough to erroneously mix old and fresh batteries. Unfortunately, when an old battery was reinserted in the flashlight""s battery compartment instead of one of the fresh backup batteries at hand, then such left-out fresh battery was accidentally thrown away in the mistaken belief that it was one of the old batteries that had been removed from the flashlight""s battery compartment.
In the photographic art, photographic film packs are well known which include their own internal battery, such as for energization of a film advance motor, a photoflash, an exposure meter system, focusing apparatus and/or a camera-to-object indicating device. Typically, the battery still has power when all photographic film has been used up from the film pack. Disposal of such empty film packs with unspent internal batteries may pose an environmental problem, especially since the number of film packs so disposed continuously is huge over large areas of the United States and other regions of the world. From an environmental point of view, it would be better if the batteries in the film packs were spent so that all electrolyte would be substantially neutralized in each internal film pack battery.
Additionally or alternatively, it would be useful to extend the utility of such photographic film packs beyond the supply of film from the pack.
The system and apparatus of the subject invention avoid such drawbacks and provides battery powered portable electric light sources wherein multiple sets of spare batteries are readily contained in the battery compartment of the portable electric light source and wherein mixups between exhausted and fresh batteries are effectively avoided.
The invention resides in a method of providing electric light, comprising, in combination, selecting an electric light source requiring for energization a pair of batteries in series, making a portable container for several pairs of these batteries, effecting a first energization of the electric light source from a first pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, thereafter effecting a second energization of the electric light source from a second pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, and thereafter effecting a third energization of the electric light source from a third pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container.
The invention also resides in a method of providing electric light, comprising, in combination, selecting first and second electric light sources each requiring for energization a pair of batteries in series, making a portable container for several pairs of these batteries, effecting a first energization of the first electric light source from a first pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, thereafter effecting a second energization of the first electric light source from a second pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, thereafter effecting a third energization of the first electric light source from a third pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, effecting an energization of the second electric light source from a pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, and thereafter effecting a further energization of the second electric light source from another pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container.
The invention resides also in a method of providing electric light with an electric light source, comprising, in combination, making a portable container for at least half a dozen batteries, effecting a first energization of that electric light source from one of these batteries while located in that container, thereafter effecting a second energization of the electric light source from a second one of these batteries while located in that container, and thereafter effecting a third energization of the electric light source from a third one of these batteries while located in that container, providing a flashlight having a light output stronger than the above mentioned electric light source and being separate from the container for use of batteries from that container, and exchanging batteries between that container and that flashlight.
The invention resides also in apparatus for providing electric light, comprising, in combination, an electric light source requiring for energization a pair of batteries in series, a portable container for several pairs of these batteries, and means for alternatively effecting a first energization of that electric light source from a first pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, a second energization of the electric light source from a second pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container, and a third energization of the electric light source from a third pair of the several pairs of batteries while located in that container.
From another aspect thereof, the invention resides in apparatus for providing electric light, comprising, in combination, an electric light source requiring for energization a pair of batteries in series, a portable container for several pairs of these batteries connected each in series at a bottom of that container, each of these several pairs of batteries including a first battery having a first positive terminal and an opposite first negative terminal, and a second battery having a second positive terminal connected to that first negative terminal and an opposite second negative terminal, with first positive terminals of first batteries of the several pairs of batteries and second negative terminals of second batteries of the several pairs of batteries being in substantially the same plane for selective application of the electric light source thereto for energization therefrom, and a socket for the electric light source including terminals corresponding to adjacent terminals of any one of the several pairs of batteries in that container.
From another aspect thereof, the invention resides in apparatus for providing electric light, comprising, in combination, an electric light source requiring batteries for energization, a portable container for several of such batteries, an electric light source mount and applicator including a lid on that container selectively applying the electric light source to such batteries when closed, and an electric light source OFF switching arrangement including a catch between the lid and the container releasably retaining that lid in a partially open position so as to disconnect the electric light source from the batteries. A second catch between the lid and the container may releasably retain that lid closed until released to its partially open position.
From another aspect thereof, the invention resides in a method of using an unspent battery having a pair of output terminals in a photographic film pack, comprising, in combination, providing a container for receiving such photographic film pack, providing at that container an electric light source for energization by the unspent battery, inserting the photographic film pack into the container, alternating the photographic film pack in the container between a first position in which the battery is disconnected from the electric light source and a second position, and connecting the electric light source to the pair of output terminals in that second position of the photographic film pack in the container.